The present disclosure relates to food processing systems and more particularly to stuffing machines for stuffing sausages and other stuffed meats as well as other types of stuffed food products into a casing. In such machines, the food product to be stuffed is pumped through a stuffing horn to be fed into a casing or film that is sheared over the exterior of the stuffing horn to form a length or log of stuffed food product. While the stuffing material is pumped through the horn, both the casing and stuffing material pass through a casing brake assembly, which controls the flow of the casing relative to the flow of the stuffing material. As such, the product diameter and casing tension are maintained at a high degree of uniformity. The stuffing material fills the casing and the casing maintains the material under slight pressure. The casing brake permits the casing to leave the horn under uniform tension.
Adjacent the casing brake, a voider voids the stuffed casing and gathers the casing or film into a small diameter rope. Then a clipping mechanism clips the stuffed casing to define the end of the exiting product. Commonly, two clips are applied, one to close off the filled casing and the other to define the leading end for the next product case. The casing rope material extending between the two applied clips is then cut.
The voider consists of two pairs of voider plates, an upstream plate pair and a downstream plate pair. During the stuffing of the casing, the voider plates are positioned side by side just downstream of the end of the horn, and the plates are in open position cooperatively creating a large opening through which the filled casing passes. Once the casing is filled to a desired extent, the voider plates of each pair close by rotating toward each other in a well-known manner, which squeezes the casing void of stuffing product and gathers the casing into a small diameter rope. Next, the downstream pair of closed voider plates moves axially forward and away from the upstream voider plates. This creates a space for the clipper to advance toward the gathered casing rope to apply closure clips thereto.
The downstream clip need not be applied adjacent the end of the stuffed casing, but can be applied further upstream thereby to provide slack casing that may be filled by the stuffing material when the stuffing material is formed in a particular shape and/or processed, such as by cooking. When the casing is being filled, the resulting log is circular in shape. However, when the desired end product is not round, but perhaps instead square or rectangular, the final product after cooking requires extra casing in order to create the square or rectangular shape.
Stuffing machines are able to pull a fixed amount of extra casing rope or film after the stuffing operation has been completed due to the separation of the downstream voider plates from the upstream voider plates. However, if longer product logs are desired, additional film or casing is required, which existing packaging/stuffing machines are not able to provide. The present disclosure is directed at creating additional slack cashing or film without having to increase the voider spread distance, which would require enlarging the packaging/stuffing machines.